People at Monmouth Park shelter will be moved indoors

Nov. 10, 2012

The tent city setup at Monmouth Park in Oceanport by FEMA for victims of Sandy. / COURTESY Brian Sotelo

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OCEANPORT — About 155 people sheltered in the so-called “Camp Freedom” in the Monmouth Park racetrack parking lot were scheduled to be moved indoors to the track’s grandstand Friday, a Red Cross spokeswoman said.

Spokeswoman Jane Bowden said people in the shelter will be joined by residents of Burlington County.

Red Cross volunteers set up more than 200 cots in the main floor area of the grandstand by early Friday afternoon. People in the shelter will have access to indoor toilets, showers and laundry facilities, as well as the Monmouth Cafe concession area within the grandstand, Bowden said.

After the Asbury Park Press reported that people at the shelter complained of freezing conditions in the tents Wednesday night, officials on Friday began the process of moving them elsewhere.

“There were concerns with the heat when evacuees first arrived,” said Nicole Brossoie, spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services. “Those issues were resolved within a couple of hours by adding more heaters.”

Bowden, the Red Cross spokeswoman, said, “This is the largest operation the Red Cross has had in five years.” The cafe, she added, will operate continuously.

The shelter, as was the case with Camp Freedom, is operated jointly by the Red Cross and the state Department of Human Services.

Student volunteers with AmeriCorps helped set up the site, Bowden said.

She said the Red Cross’ role is dormitory management, setting up the site and providing supplies. The organization also supplies disaster mental health professionals, she said.

Bowden said people would be moved “as soon as the Red Cross is satisfied that everything that is needed is here.”

The tent city housed residents displaced by Hurricane Sandy, as well as law enforcement and utility workers from around the country who have come to help with the cleanup, said Brossoie, of the Department of Human Services.

She said the utility workers “have done such a great job getting people back on the (electric) grid, we don’t anticipate them being there much longer,” and that the tent city would soon be closed.

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“It just makes sense to try to remove (people staying in the shelter) before this becomes an issue.”

Brossoie said the tent city was built to house 2,000 people, but it held 200.

“Staff needs to have the ability to work in a contained environment so they can pay attention in the right way to the shelterees’ needs,” she said.

“We wanted to put them in an area that’s more contained and allow the staff that’s there to do the job they need to do,” she said.

Karl Matzke, who directs “mass care” for the Red Cross, said the organization also wanted people in an area where they would not have to go outside to use toilet facilities or to eat.

He said the tents also posed hazards for people with disabilities.

Monmouth Park management wanted to do “everything we could” to help with the recovery effort, said Robert Kulina, president of Darby Development, the track’s operators.

“We thought our facility would be something that could be used and everyone seemed to agree once they saw it,” he said. “It’s going to be a major operation but we think it will be a longer-term solution.”